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Home Entertainment: 1939

January 1939. "Boy whose father is on relief. Family living in shanty at city dump. Herrin, Illinois." Seen earlier here and here. Medium format negative by Arthur Rothstein for the Resettlement Administration. View full size.

The phonograph's turntable and tone arm are laying on the table behind the kid's head, so the poor family can't even listen to tunes, at least until the machine is fixed. I also notice quite a few Edison Diamond Discs in the stack of records [these were heavy discs that were about the thickness of three standard 78rpm records].

I remember one of my great-uncles years ago talking about how they would sharpen used phonograph needles with a file so they could be re-used again, simply because they could not afford the nickel or so for a pack of new needles.

Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.